What Pegman Saw: Elanua

“Papa, I had an idea about letters,” Elanua said. “Instead of copying the same letters over and over again, what if you carved the letters on a tile and them painted them with ink? Then you could press your words to paper over and over again.”

The old man laughed. That one was full of ideas. Last week she had a notion about the moldy bread. The week before that she talked of lancing the pox from a child with fever in order to make a potion to keep the others well.

His wife shook her head and clucked; she was less forgiving of the girl. “Go fetch water Elanua,” she said. As the girl danced through the doorway and down the cobbled path, she turned to him. “Enough indulging her. It’s time to get that one married so she can put her mind to good use—bringing us grandsons.”

But what of the medicine woman of antiquity, who sensed by smell the potential in each leaf–who remembered their location and could concoct cures for such ills that now baffle Western medicine? Our measure of genius invents and defines itself. Who knows what wisdom is lost.

Those ideas probably would sound crackpot the first time (or ten) they were suggested — and even worse coming from a child. (What a very precocious child, my!) And of course, coming from a girl, whose only purpose in society is making babies.. (sigh) It does make me wonder how much more progress we might have made as a society if we had encouraged the minds of those who weren’t white male property owners. But then, realizing that was a major type of progress in itself.

It just makes me wonder how often people concocted brilliant ideas, but were squashed by “right thinking” people. I think the number of times this really has happened would be terrifying. Far-reaching ideas rarely come from conventional thinkers. I think this is a brilliant characterization.

A lovely story, Karen, full of your signature lightness and loving touches. The sad part is, this rejection of ideas and people continues today, anywhere we look is we scratch hard enough. I had a similar theme in mind for my stories written yesterday but the location and characters were too predictable hence I rejected posting them which kind of highlights the point I was trying to make. Doh!

Maybe you need to go back and post them anyway. Sometimes we can be our own worst critics. The world is hard enough on ideas without us rejecting them before they make it out to the world. Thanks so much for reading and commenting, Kelvin.